The Syracuse Orange will head to Dallas to play SMU with a 3-2 record. On the surface, it’s where most of us would have put the Orange prior to the season. Unfortunately how Syracuse has gotten here has been anything but predictable.
Syracuse was a 4th down completion away from falling to 0-2, but they rallied to win in overtime over UConn. Fran Brown had his players run after the win and that started people talking. Last week, Syracuse went to Clemson and controlled the game over the Tigers. Even
though Dabo’s crew is down, that got more of the nation to take notice not on post-game running, but the on-field product….which makes yesterday’s performance more frustrating.
Without Steve Angeli, the Orange seemed to forget what had been successful in the previous weeks. Blocking was optional. The decision-making from Rickie Collins was questionable. Tackling must have gotten stuck at the Drumlins brunch because unlike most of the Family Weekend sell-out, it wasn’t arriving at the Dome to see the Pride of the Orange halftime show.
Fran Brown is going to be seething this week and with good reason. His Orange had a chance to get back to the Top 25 with a win. Being ranked does carry a bit of importance in terms of getting the program back where we all want it to be. A close loss yesterday would have stung, but to be so thoroughly out-played has the fickle fanbase falling right off the bandwagon before October gets here.
The loss isn’t just about the Top 25, or ACC Championship/CFP hopes, it’s about getting that group of fans back in the Dome consistently. Blowout losses are what turned people away during the Scott Shafer and Dino Babers eras and while rational fans see the progress that Fran Brown is making, the people who only want to hop on the back of a winner again have a reason to stay away.
As our post-game Slack discussion turned to fan reactions, Steve mentioned how nuance is gone and he’s right. Last week fans were talking about SMU and Notre Dame as being weaker than expected. They looked at Duke’s losses to Illinois and Tulane and had this one circled as a win. Now that it’s a loss, many of those same people are talking about a 3-4 win season and making reference to lost seasons under Babers.
Maybe this season disintegrates without Angeli, but maybe we can let a bit more of this season play out before openly raising doubts about Fran Brown’s ability. I said last week that the long climb back wasn’t going to be easy and this week the Orange stumbled. Now we’ll see if they can dust themselves off and start moving forward.
